3D Illusions By Kurt Wenner

Career
Kurt Wenner produced his first commissioned mural at the age of sixteen and by seventeen he was earning his living as a graphic artist. He attended both Rhode Island School of Design and Art Center College of Design, before working for NASA. While at NASA Wenner worked as an advanced scientific illustrator, creating conceptual paintings of future space projects and extraterrestrial landscapes. In 1982 he left NASA, sold all of his belongings, and moved to Italy to study figurative drawing and art. Wenner lived a stone's throw from the Pantheon in the heart of Rome, where he studied the drawings, paintings, and sculptures of the old masters in Rome's best known museums. Over the years Wenner's work became known throughout the country and in 1991 he was commissioned to create a work of art to honor the visit of Pope John Paul II to the city of Mantua.
In the 1980s Wenner first introduced 3D pavement art at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Shortly after that he founded the first street painting festival in the United States at the Old Mission in Santa Barbara, California. The Old Mission festival, also known as I Madonnari, continues to this day as do many of the festivals and events Wenner started across the country. One often-overlooked fact of Wenner's career is that he dedicated one month every year, for 10 years, to teach more than 100,000 students from elementary through university level how to work with chalks and pastels. For his dedication, he was awarded the Kennedy Center Medallion for his outstanding contribution to arts education.
With the ever increasing popularity of Wenner's images, hundreds of artists across the globe became inspired to create their own versions of three-dimensional pavement art. Artists such as Julian Beever, Manfred Stader, and Edgar Muller as well as others can trace their roots back to his invention in the early 1980s. By using computer programs or a simplified geometry to create their illusions they are able to approximate the effect of Wenner's three-dimensional illusion.